Portrait of Leopold Staff

Leopold Staff

Polish poet

Lived
1878–1957
Country
Poland

Updated September 2026

About Leopold Staff

Leopold Henryk Staff was a Polish poet; an artist of European modernism twice granted the Degree of Doctor honoris causa by universities in Warsaw and in Kraków. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Polish PEN Club. Representative of classicism and symbolism in the poetry of Young Poland, he was an author of many philosophical poems influenced by the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, the ideas of Franciscan order as well as paradoxes of Christianity.

Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers. Last updated September 2026.